Easy tip to be the best zombie you can be this Halloween

Blake St. Clair (left) and Jamie St. Clair (back right), holding their 11-month-old child Verlyn St. Clair, celebrate after placing in the costume competition at the 12th Annual Denver Zombie Crawl at Skyline Park in Denver, Colorado, Saturday, October 7, 2017. The Englewood couple called their costume "Baby's First Halloween." (Brenden Neville/Special to the Denver Post)

Hoards of undead shuffled and staggered down Denver’s 16th Street Mall on Saturday afternoon with cuts, scrapes, gashes and other assorted gory wounds.

Hundreds of people participating in the annual Zombie Crawl got a little help from professional makeup artists. And while the pros aren’t always available to help people look their ugliest, they were more than ready to offer tips on how to look as ghoulish as possible.

“The great thing about gross or gory makeup is it doesn’t have to be perfect,” said Katy Williams, a professional makeup artist in Denver, who created her own latex prosthetics for the crawl.

Williams used spirit gum to make the fake bite marks and scratches stick to her clients’ skin. If stored in a cool, dry place, such prostethics will keep for years, she said.

“Penny, do you want blood coming out of your mouth?” Williams asked a customer.